The Lazarus Impact

by Todarello, Vincent

  “THIS IS NOT A TEST.” The voice booms and startles him. He lowers the volume. “This is a recording of the emergency broadcast system. All those east of Ohio and north of Washington DC are advised to shelter in place. All others should move as far south and west as possible. The debris plume resulting from the meteor impacts in the northeast is considered extremely hazardous. Those in the affected area should seal their windows and doors, remain inside and rely on air filtration systems whenever possible.” The message repeats. He plays around with the knobs but he only finds the same message on all the other channels that have a signal, AM and FM alike. He shuts the radio.

  It’s dead silent in the bunker. Brandon wants to start up the generator and get his shelter powered up, but down there it’s safe, and the air is filtered through vents. He convinces himself to try his luck topside. It’ll only be for a minute, and I have a gas mask incase the debris cloud is thick. If it isn’t too hectic out there, I can try to get mom and dad too, and sack the house for supplies. He struggles to open the hatch. There’s something sitting on top, obstructing it, preventing it from opening. He pushes with all his might until something heavy rolls off from on top of the hatch. He shudders when he sees a lifeless arm tumble and flop to the grass on one side. A body. Once it rolls out of the way he quickly pops up from the bunker and shuts the hatch door. He looks down with a double take. There are two bodies; his parents. Grief sweeps over him in a rush. The excitement of the apocalypse turns to fear and sadness. He weeps in his white, elephant trunk style, Cold War era gas mask. He checks their pulses at the wrist. He can’t feel anything. He looks around in a panic to see his house severely damaged. A wall is caved in, exposing the living room on one side. The roof has been pelted with debris, making holes into the attic. Sheets of shingles and siding have blown off, lying scattered across the grass, and a huge oak tree has fallen onto the cars, flattening them like pancakes. The shed is pretty banged up too, but it still stands. The generator is safe.

  He drags his parents aside, near the edge of the woods adjacent to the property. He speaks a few solemn words under his breath, things he memorized in Sunday school. He wants to bury them, but he’s afraid of lingering topside for too long. I have to press on. I have to force myself to be strong, independent. It’s the apocalypse. It’s what I wanted, right?

  The air is still as he heads for the shed. An unearthly black dust covers much of the property. He takes an erratic zigzag pattern, avoiding the debris like it’s hot lava. It’s from the impact cloud, and he doesn’t want to drag any of it back into the shelter. His years spent reading science fiction comic books make him extra cautious. This strange soot is poisonous, and he assumes the worst of all possible scenarios if he contacts it. He imagines his skin burning to the bone, or the debris dissolving his shoes or clothes, getting to his body and liquefying it into green ooze, or turning him into some bloodthirsty mutant. But his parents are physically intact, in one piece. He shakes everything from his thoughts. This is what I’ve prepared for. I can do this.

  Brandon opens the lock to the generator with the combination he remembered. With a few draining tugs of the pull-start engine it rumbles to a rattling hum. He checks his fuel supply; he will have to ration it carefully, and attempt to get more if he plans to hole up at the bunker for an extended period of time. The closest gas station is about five miles away.

  Eager to try to contact Apocalypta with his computer and electronics powered up, and frightened of the mysterious debris, he hurriedly turns back to the hatch. But he notices something on the way. The bodies; his parents are gone. He spins his head in all directions. His breathing frantically quickens with his heartbeat in tow. They are nowhere to be seen. Were they still alive? No. I checked. The panic consumes him. His overactive comic book imagination kicks in when he hears a light rustling in the woods behind him. Something moves among the trees within the lengthening early evening shadows. Alien abduction? ... Zombies.

  Freaked out, he whips open the hatch, kicks off his sneakers, and scurries back down into the fully lit and buzzing shelter, hoping he didn’t track in any toxic dust. If they’re alive they will knock. He reassures himself again and again. He cries, thinking of his parents.

  CHAPTER 7

  Where am I? Sheryl wakes up in a hospital connected to machines by tubes and wires. A laboratory style gas mask covers her face. She feels pain in her shoulder, but she's surprised to see it in a sling. The last thing she remembers is Stephen coughing up blood. She pulls the wires and tubes off of herself, igniting a storm of alarming machine noises. She begins to peel the gas mask off her face, but then she remembers. The dust. A nurse rushes in, also wearing a gas mask.

  “Leave that mask on, ma’am. The debris from the cloud is dangerous,” the nurse warns. Sheryl leaves it on.

  “Where are my sons? Are they alright?” she asks as the nurse pushes a few buttons to override the machines, stopping the noise.

  A doctor enters the room and sits beside her bed. He too wears a mask. In fact Sheryl notices that the entire staff has masks on as they hurriedly pass by in the hallway. The hospital is buzzing with activity. This can’t be normal.

  “Where are my boys?” Sheryl asks with tears welling up in her eyes.

  “I’m Dr. Levy. I fixed up your arm there. You had a dislocated shoulder.”

  “Answer me!” she yells.

  “I’m sorry, Mrs. Bassonnet. They didn’t make it. Stephen died in the crash, and Bobby passed shortly after due to complications from breathing the dust outside,” he explains.

  “Why am I alive? Why did you save me?” she asks.

  “When the ambulance got to the accident you weren’t breathing. They revived you on the way to the hospital and here you are,” he says.

  A storm of emotions churns inside Sheryl. He answered how, not why. What reason is there to live without my boys? She feels alone, guilty, angry, responsible. “Take me to see them.”

  “Mrs. Bassonnet, we can’t,” the nurse begins to explain.

  “Now!” she insists. Dr. Levy nods at the nurse, giving the okay.

  Sheryl’s body aches with each step as they walk down the chaotic hallway that leads from the ER to the morgue.

  “You’re lucky to be alive,” the nurse says.

  “Am I?” Sheryl responds after a reflective pause.

  “You didn’t breathe the dust. People are slowly dying because of it.”

  “My life is nothing without my boys,” Sheryl responds, almost angry.

  “What about your husband?” the nurse asks. Sheryl doesn’t respond. They come upon a pair of light blue swinging double doors labeled morgue. “This is it. Are you sure you want to do this?” the nurse asks.

  “Yes,” she says as she pushes the door open, revealing a cold, clinical room, brightly lit with buzzing fluorescent tubes overhead. The back wall is a grid of square metal doors for holding the dead in cold temperatures to prevent decay. Six stainless steel tables are lined up side by side in the center of the room; on each is a body covered in wispy hospital linen. The nurse pushes a smaller shelf-like wheeled table filled with crude looking medical tools to the side, out of their way.

  “Stephen is here,” the nurse says as she approaches one of the freezer doors. “His torso was badly wounded in the accident. He died quickly, painlessly.” She opens the door and pulls Stephen out on the rolling metal slab fitted into the unit.

  Sheryl whimpers when the nurse peels back the sheet that covers Stephen’s face. He’s been cleaned and stripped of his clothing. “My baby,” she says as she moves her face close to his. I want so badly to kiss his forehead one last time. This goddamn gas mask... She yanks it off in frustration and plants a soft kiss on him, over the nurse’s pleading objections and warnings.

  Suddenly an alarm bell rings in the hallway. It blares violently, rapidly, like a fire drill in high school. Sheryl puts her mask back on. “Where is BJ?” she asks. There’s yelling coming from down the hallway by the ER.

  “We
have to go now, Mrs. Bassonnet. I’m sorry. There’s an emergency,” the nurse says, taking Sheryl by the arm and moving her quickly out of the morgue.

  “I need to say goodbye to my son!” Sheryl begs.

  “Not now. We can’t. I can’t let you be here alone. We need to get you back to your room. You shouldn't even be up.”

  The smashing sound of broken glass just behind them shatters their argument as a maintenance worker breaks open the emergency fire kit in the hallway to reach for the axe inside. He rushes past them and out the nearby exit, by the ambulance port.

  “What’s going on?” Sheryl asks.

  “It’s been crazy here all day. We have to get you back to your bed, and I need to get to work, okay?” The nurse says with force.

  Sheryl caves. “Okay."

  They move back through the hall at a brisk pace. The alarm continues to ring, constant, piercing. Sheryl tries to ignore it along with her aches and pains. Doctors and nurses are rushing all around the ER in a frantic panic. They are overwhelmed, understaffed, and unprepared for what’s happening.

  “I checked her pulse twice just a minute ago! She was gone,” one nurse argues with another just outside a curtained ER room.

  “Well she’s alive now,” the other snaps back.

  They hurry back to Sheryl’s room and her nurse runs off after Sheryl is safely in her bed.

  “What is Mr. Mortenson doing up?” Dr. Levy calls out in the hallway. “He needs to rest.”

  Sheryl gets up from her bed, confused. She peeks down the hall to see an old man shambling his way toward the nurse station in the middle of the run. Half naked, his ass hangs out of his hospital gown, which is in the process of falling off his body completely.

  Dr. Levy trots over to him and takes him by the arm. “Mr. Mortenson, come back to your room. You shouldn’t be up. Using all this energy to walk around will wipe you out because that dust is blocking the air from getting into your lungs.” Mr. Mortenson groans at him, unreceptive. “Tina, I don’t have time for this, I need to check on about twelve other patients right now,” he complains to Sheryl’s nurse. “I know we’re understaffed but I need you to keep an eye on things. And he should at least have an oxygen intake.” Dr. Levy tugs at Mr. Mortenson’s arm, trying to lead him back to his room. He won’t listen, and Dr. Levy becomes impatient with his patient. “Come on, let’s go!”

  In a flash of rage Mr. Mortenson growls, lunges, and bites Dr. Levy, tearing a chunk of stringy red flesh from his neck. Dr. Levy screams in pain and his knees buckle, dropping him to the cold faux tile floor. Blood pours and sprays out in all directions, coating the hallway. Dr. Levy begins to convulse violently, foaming at the mouth and vomiting. His pool of blood and bile smears as he twitches. Tina, Sheryl’s nurse, runs over to him, putting pressure on his neck to try to stop the bleeding.

  Mr. Mortenson turns and chomps at her, falls on top of her, and continues to devour her. She flails in pain and soon begins to seize like the doctor. One of the orderlies runs over and tries to restrain Mr. Mortenson, hooking his arms underneath Mr. Mortenson’s arm pits, pulling him backward off of Tina. But the orderly slips in the blood, falling to the floor. Dr. Levy and Tina both slowly stop twitching. They’re dead. The hall is full of chaos and panic, and more screams begin to rise up from down the hall by the morgue. The alarm continues to sound, and other patients begin to emerge from their rooms to see the horror.

  Suddenly Dr. Levy sits up in death. His eyes are wide and crazy. Then Tina sits up, covered in blood from head to toe. They both race toward the orderly, tackling him back to the ground as he struggles to regain his footing on the blood slicked floor. The two ravage him, tearing him apart with their fingers and teeth. Mr. Mortenson, as if completely revived with energy, runs naked toward the other patients. His gown has slipped off.

  Sheryl’s heart races into a panic upon seeing the scene unfold before her eyes. She gasps aloud, and Dr. Levy’s crazed eyes fix upon her between swallows of the orderly’s flesh. He moves toward her. Oh fuck, he saw me. She swiftly slips her slender body back into her room and closes the door behind her. There’s no lock. She jams it shut with a nearby chair, and pulls the hospital bed over with all her strength. She tries the phone on the bedside table but there’s nothing on the other end, no dial tone. She gathers up her belongings, puts on her jeans, her sneakers, and struggles to get her shirt on, with only one arm through the sleeve. She digs around in her jacket pocket for her cell phone. There’s no reception. The meteors must have screwed up the signal.

  Suddenly there’s a pounding at her door. It’s Dr. Levy. Tina too. She hears the groans and growls of the dead outside in the hall, trying to get in. She ducks out of view from the door window and hides in the bathroom, locking herself in.

  The pounding grows heavier and heavier, and soon the door to her room is broken down. She hears the alarm bells blaring louder. She puts her back against the wall and slides down to the floor. Tears and fog fill her gas mask. She prays that the lock on the bathroom door holds up.

  CHAPTER 8

  The Hillside apartment complex stirred with activity way too early in the morning, and it woke Willy Stanton from his slumber. He barely slept for anything longer than a nap after he came home from the war, even almost 40 years later. The nightmares still linger, though they’ve gotten much better in the last 20 years or so. But, little did he know, he slept clean through the meteor shower, all the while dreaming he and his platoon were under heavy artillery fire from the VC. He only found out about the meteors when the bus driver said “last bus for the day” as he boarded on his way to work, before the debris swept into town. He heard the sirens off in the distance. Apparently the town was under some sort of emergency, so he pressed the driver for more information. When he learned of the impact, he knew it would mean a hectic work day, but he had no idea just how bad it would get.

  Willy had a television but he never watched it; he even stopped reading the papers too. It was all shit, and he couldn’t bear to see it or read it. A lonely soul, he volunteered to work a double shift at the ER so that a couple of the other janitors could be home with their families for Christmas. He didn’t have anyone in his life anymore. Even his Marine buddies had lost contact with him, moved on, or went AWOL.

  After an hour or two into his first shift the hospital starts to look like the trauma tents at the edges of a battlefield. There are dozens of traffic accidents, severed limbs, and crushed bodies. But there’s lots of seemingly spontaneous and violent sickness, too. He overhears strange talk about people biting one another out in the town, and victims coming in with flesh missing, like it had been torn off and eaten. Some of the nurses and orderlies are talking about how a cloud of debris from the meteor impacts had blown over town and started making people ill, and how the radio had a warning to avoid the northeast.

  He doesn’t think much of it until he sees the result for himself. From his office window he looks out across the ambulance bay. An ambulance pulls up, speeding and driving erratically, only coming to a stop after crashing into the cement walls that slope downward into the ground floor entryway, in the back of the ER. The ambulance spins 180 degrees after hitting the pier, and the rear doors fling open to reveal the horrors taking place inside. A patient is eating one of the EMTs alive, tearing at her neck and face with his teeth. Willy sees the cannibal rip her shirt open and bury his face into her breasts. Is this some kinda sick rape? No. This is worse. When the beast twists its neck to yank the flesh away, it nearly tears one of her breasts off her body. She screams in terror as he devours her. Blood spews from the driver’s neck too, coating the ceiling of the ambulance cab with his red gravy. He begins violently convulsing in the front seat.

  Willy darts out from his office into the hallway just beside the ambulance bay, smashes open an emergency glass fireman’s box, and removes the axe from within. He scares the living shit out of a nurse and patient standing nearby, but he doesn’t care. The EMT needs my immediate help. He runs outside, a
nd the carnage begins to spill out of the ambulance and onto the drive ramp. The deranged, blood soaked patient looks up from his meal of meat and fixes a pair of piss yellow eyes on Willy. The sight of it takes him by surprise. His heart thumps out of his chest. Suddenly he feels a cold sweat come over him. Every hair on his body perks up on end from head to toe, and he freezes up. In his head the sound of machine gun fire fills his ears. Loud, but broken up and muffled orders from base command warn of incoming napalm. He shakes his head, trying to break it. He knows it’s a flashback, a remnant of his PTSD. He looks at his walkie. It is NOT base command. It’s just frantic calls coming in telling him there’s a bed pan spill on three, a broken window in triage, and a blood slick in the ER. He starts to come out of it, but the machine gun fire rages on. He looks for the sound. Just ahead; the woman who was being eaten. Her leg twitches violently, and her foot taps the side of the gurney in the ambulance repeatedly, profusely. It is NOT gunfire. It’s just the rattling of metal. He’s brought himself back.

  The cannibal lunges at him, but Willy steps aside and swings the axe up from his hip, burying it deep into the beast’s stomach. The patient folds over at the waist and flips to the ground. Willy knows something is wrong when the animal immediately stands up and comes at him again. A second swing of the fire axe splits the cannibal’s head in two. This stops him immediately.

  After catching his breath Willy approaches the ambulance to check on the woman. Her ribcage is completely exposed; there is no skin covering her chest. Only blood. Her twitching comes to a stop but her eyes are wide and bloodshot. They glow amber like the patient’s eyes, and a moment later she too attacks Willy, reaching for him with wretched bloodlust. He slams the rear ambulance door on her face and knocks her back, enclosing her inside. He circles around to the driver’s side door to see the other EMT afflicted with the same condition. He backs away slowly. They’re filled with rage. No reason, no thinking, no speaking; only attacking, feeding.